Publisher Description
A sweeping and revelatory history of basketball, drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews with the greatest players, coaches, executives, and journalists in the history of the game.
In an effort to tell the complete story of basketball in all its fascinating dimensions, award-winning filmmaker Dan Klores, along with celebrated journalists Jackie MacMullan and Rafe Bartholomew, has compiled nearly a thousand hours’ worth of interviews with a staggering number of basketball greats. They’ve talked to hundreds of legendary players, such as Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Magic Johnson, and spoken with renowned coaches, including Phil Jackson and Coach K, as well as numerous executives, commissioners, and journalists. Most impressive was the extraordinary quality of the interviews. Again and again, players spoke candidly about secrets and told stories they’d never before discussed on the record.
The book that grew out of those interviews is an extraordinary project and quite possibly the most ambitious basketball book ever written. At once a definitive oral history and something far more literary and intimate, this is the never-before-told story of how basketball came to be, and about what it means to those who’ve given their lives to the game.
Download and start listening now!
This is a shadow history of how basketball became the game that it is today -- it's all the details you don't know about the all the stuff you always thought you understood. Maybe you think you know everything about Wilt's 100-point game. You don't. Maybe you think you have a grasp on the ABA and the ACC and the complexity of institutional racism and Michael Jordan's secret grudge with George Gervin. You do not. This is not a book for people who just think basketball is OK. This is a book for people who care.
—
Chuck Klosterman, New York Times Bestselling author of I Wear the Black Hat and But What if We're Wrong?
About the Authors
Tom Stechschulte has narrated well over a hundred audiobooks and has won many AudioFile Earphones Awards. He won the prestigious Audie Award in 2009 and has been a finalist for the Audie in 2005 and 2011. As an actor, he has been seen in eleven Broadway shows as well as numerous television and film shows, including the remake of The Manchurian Candidate. He was featured on one of the most famous episodes of The Incredible Hulk ever, September 1979’s “Blind Rage.”
Carol Monda is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and accomplished voice-over artist. She is also an award-winning actor known for her work in Out of Season, After You Left, and The Gentlemen.
About the Narrators
Carol Monda is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and accomplished voice-over artist. She is also an award-winning actor known for her work in Out of Season, After You Left, and The Gentlemen.
Ken Scholes’s short fiction
has been appearing in various magazines and anthologies for the last eight
years, including Realms of Fantasy, Polyphony 6, and Weird Tales. He is a winner of the Writers of the Future contest.
Ken’s background includes service in two branches of the military, a degree in
history, a brief stint as a clergyman, an even briefer stint as a label-gun
repairman and over ten years’ experience managing nonprofit organizations.
Originally from the Puget Sound area, Ken currently lives in Gresham, Oregon,
with his amazing wonder-wife Jen, two cats, five guitars, and more books than
you’d ever want to help him move.
James Fouhey is an actor and narrator living in New York City. He received classical training at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He has recorded more than forty audiobooks across a variety of genres, including science fiction, romance, young adult fiction, and children’s fiction.
Sullivan Jones is a voice talent and Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator.
January LaVoy, winner of numerous awards for narration, was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine in 2019. She is an American actress best known for her character Noelle Ortiz on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live. In addition to working extensively in narration and television, including roles on Law & Order and All My Children, she has worked on and off Broadway as well as in regional theater.
Jim Frangione is an actor and audiobook narrator who won AudioFile magazine’s 2011 Best Voice in Mystery and Suspense for his reading of Philip Carter’s The Altar of Bones and Spencer Quinn’s To Fetch a Thief. He has won numerous Earphones Awards and has been was a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award. His theater credits include the off-Broadway production of Scrambled Eggs and the New York premiere of David Mamet’s plays The Old Neighborhood, Romance, and Oleanna, in which he also performed with the national tour. His film and television appearances include Joy, Transamerica, Spartan, Heist, Brotherhood, The Unit, and Law & Order.
Neil Hellegers grew up in New Jersey and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a BA in theater arts and a minor in psychology before getting an MFA in acting from the Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. He moved to New York City in 2003 and, since then, has made a career of theatrical performance, percussion, theater education, and audiobook narration. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.